Margot Hall took cautious steps into the Edmond Town Hall boiler room Tuesday, May 17, to visit what she calls "the ladies down below."Queen Mary."The Newtown Bee microfilm also failed to answer Ms Hall's questions, but did reveal small scraps of history.A 'Generous Offer'The Bee to then-Board of Selectmen saying she had been considering "the project of a new Town Hall in our village." She offered the town $250,000 for a building to be known as Edmond Town Hall in memory of her great-grandfather, William Edmond.The Newtown Bee ran Ms Hawley's letter and an accompanying editorial noting "Miss Mary E. Hawley has shown her affectionate regard for her native town, by offering to build a new Town Hall."The Bee included an article regarding a town meeting "for the purposes of acting on the generous offer." Those gathered for the meeting soon adopted a resolution accepting Ms Hawley's offer. By November 1928 the newspaper ran renderings of the building and news of the contract for construction awarded to H. Wales Lines Co. of Meriden.The Bee's issue dated for Friday, May 3, 1929, a front page article noted that "the cornerstone of the new Edmond Town Hall was laid on Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock in the presence of a goodly number of citizens," including Miss Hawley.Mary Elizabeth Hawley, Dan Cruson includes a photo showing Miss Hawley leaning forward to touch the cornerstone as it falls into place. The image is captioned: "The last photo of Mary Hawley taken a little less than a year before her death at the cornerstone laying for the Edmond Town Hall. May 1, 1929."Images of America: Newtown 1900-1960 also has details about the town hall construction. Groundbreaking took place in 1928 and required crews to move an old firehouse and building that had once been a town garage and jail. That building was replaced in 1933 with current Hook & Ladder Fire headquarters, in the rear parking lot of Edmond Town Hall. Newtown Hook & Ladder is nearing completion of a new firehouse on Church Hill Road across from Wendover Road.Projected Costs

The "ladies" are enormous 1929 Bigelow two-pass steamship boilers, said Edmond Town Hall Office Manager Sheila Torres. She pointed out different features to Ms Hall, Board of Managers chairman, as the two discussed the boilers' "imminent" replacement, Ms Torres said.

"It's time for new boilers," Ms Torres said. "We've been nursing these along."

Standing side by side, and nearly as tall as the 18-foot ceiling, the twin boilers take up most of the space in building's boiler room. Walking beside the antique machinery and toward another back storage room, Ms Torres noted the rusted asbestos back doors and pipes on the boilders. With a glance around, she said the hazardous materials would be removed first for the project, which she anticipates will begin any day. The boilers will then be dismantled and removed and then new, much smaller equipment will replace the building's original heating system. The work needs to be completed by mid-October, when Ms Torres is required by law to turn on the heat for the historic building at 45 Main Street.

Moving around the large equipment and looking up at massive cast iron doors, Ms Hall said, "I feel like I am in the

Smiling, Ms Torres agreed. She also noted that in their nearly 80-year lifetime, the boilers have fired coal, oil, and gas. They were converted from coal to oil in 1969. The boilers were named and marked with chalk as "I" and "II" and used alternately from one year to the next, Ms Hall said.

Noting their size and weight, Ms Hall suspects that the boilers were in place before the building was constructed around them. Town Historian Daniel Cruson did not have a definite answer for Ms Hall, but was able to relay some information about the Edmond Town Hall, and when its cornerstone went in. The boilers could have been set in place at that time. Also in local history books by Mr Cruson are other details about digging a foundation, but no confirmation that the boilers were in place before construction.

A search through

On June 20, 1928, Mary Hawley wrote a letter published in

The June 22, 1928 issue of

The following week's issue of

In

In his book

Mr Cruson has also said often that Miss Hawley never got to see the building completed.

His book

Another photo in that book shows excavation equipment digging a foundation into the ground. The caption states: "A substantial building needs a substantial foundation." On the next pages are images of the foundation construction and town hall basement that includes a gymnasium still in use today. Below that image is a cornerstone stamped 1929, as men set it in place in the brickwork.

Another photo, titled "The Edmond Town Hall Arises," shows scaffolding in place as crews finish the building's façade. The caption reads: "The building was beginning to take on its recognizable shape. At this point, Mary Hawley had become ill. Everyone offered prayers that she would live to see the building completed. This was not to be. As her funeral cortege slowly made its way to the village cemetery, the bell in the town hall steeple tolled for the first time."

Construction crews completed the building in 1930.

A letter to Board of Finance Chair James Gaston from Public Building and Site Commission Chair Robert Mitchell on March 10 first requested additional funds beyond the $300,000 allotted in the town's Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to replace the boilers.

"The additional amount is needed for the project mainly because of required remediation regarding the removal of the old boiler, additional requirement to the life safety systems and reconfiguration to the existing drainage in the mechanical equipment room," Mr Mitchell explained.

Newtown Finance Director Robert Tait said at that time that the Board of Finance on March 14 had passed a resolution amending the original bond from $300,000 to $500,000. The lowest bid for the boiler work had come in at $391,000 plus other expenses, he said.